Human + Bicycle = Target

So there I am, riding my fat bike on a grey and rainy Alaska spring breakup day. The roads are flooded with meltwater, the sidewalks and bike trails are either choked with snow and slush or coated in slick ice, and the cars are traveling three times as fast as normal because there’s finally no ice on the roads. Therefore I’m riding in the road; about six feet from the snowbank because there’s so much debris and so many deep puddles on the side of the road, making it not possible to use the sidewalk or bike lane. It’s a small street, very little traffic anyway. As I head down a hill, a municipal snowplow truck turns onto the road headed my way. The driver sees two pedestrians on his side of the road, and opts to give them a wide berth – pulling straight into my lane, aiming for a certain head-on collision if I don’t act.

I slam on my brakes with no other option, and my bike skids sideways. The plow truck ponderously goes back to its own lane; my angry shouts are met by a shrug from the Municipal employee whom I’m currently trying my best to contact via the city government. I shake my head in disbelief. The plow truck driver had seen me coming; all he had to do was wait until I rode past before he moved to pass the pedestrians. But because I’m on a bike, it’s OK to try to hit me head-on?

A few seconds later the Subaru behind me passes me, so close that its door brushes my pogie. I gesture even more rudely at that driver, who also offers a “what can I do?” shrug. There was no traffic headed towards us; the driver clearly came that close on purpose. Naturally this aggressive move gets him nowhere for he is stopped by a red light, at which I catch up to him and confront him.* “That was way too close, man!” I say. “One mistake and I’d be dead. Is it worth it to you?”

“You were too far out into the road, acting like you had every right to be there,” he says, confirming my belief that he grazed me on purpose.

“I do have every right to be there,” I reply. “Look it up. You could have killed me, and why? To make a point? Because you’re in a car and I’m on a bike, you think it’s OK to risk killing me because YOU think I’m too far onto the road?”

“You are giving every biker a bad name!” sputters the man.

“We ride bikes, too!” Injects his wife, who you’ll recall was about two inches away from my bike as her husband passed me moments earlier.

“Good,” I say. “The next time a driver scares the hell out of you when you’re riding, I hope you think back on this day and realize what a jackass you were and how dangerous your actions have been.”

What gets me about this episode that the pedestrians in the picture were given a wide berth. If I had been walking instead of riding a bike, no doubt the Subaru driver would have given me space. Hell, if I’d been driving my truck there is NO WAY they would have tried to drive that close just to try to make their point.

What is it about being a on a bike that makes people think it’s OK to try purposefully to scare you or make you swerve or try to hurt you? What is it that makes them think your life is worthless and that the fact that they’re in a car means that you could be jelly under their wheels and not only would they not care, but they’d think you got what you deserved? It’s chilling.

Last year I met with the Anchorage mayor, police chief, and other planners and staff about bike safety in the Municipality. The general consensus from the group was that public safety messages should be directed towards bikers, telling them how to ride more safely; that bike riders should take classes to teach them how to ride in traffic. No messages for drivers at all. No confirmations that people on bikes are, you know, people – humans. Nothing indicating that maybe drivers should chill out, slow down, be courteous and safe around bicycles, or else someone could get hurt.

Nope. Evidently you only have value as a human until you get on a bicycle. Then, anything that happens to you seems to be A-OK with a whole bunch of people out there.

6 comments on “Human + Bicycle = Target”

Good for you for confronting that guy, that takes some guts. I definitely don’t understand that mindset of ‘teaching someone a lesson’ when that lesson could get that person killed. It’s really dangerous, passive-aggressive move.

I always have to remind myself that it’s only a small percentage of drivers that act that way towards cyclists, and a small percentage of cyclists who actually ride like jackasses and fuel the flames in the other direction. I agree that education is a big part of the equation, for both cyclists AND drivers. Keep on fighting, lady!

Word. I wonder if they were shown exactly how hitting a person with their car could affect their lives if they would continue down that path. Interesting idea for a public service announcement, like the ones they do for drunk driving….

re: the attitude of your mayor, I feel your pain. Calgary has long suffered from troglodyte (aka Cowboy) mayors who have ensured that the city is a sprawling paradise for cars and trucks. Only in the past 2 years have we elected a progressive mayor who has begun the transformation to a bike-friendly city.

And re: transformation, allow me to introduce Mia Birk, http://www.altaplanning.com/mia+birk.aspx , a magnificent woman who lead the transformation of Portland, OR to a haven for cyclists. I lived in Portland in ’91/92, just before this transformation began, and although I took my bike when I moved there, I ended up not riding it the entire time for safety reasons. Ms. Birk was hired to fix this problem, and did a fantastic job. I met her last year when she came to speak in Calgary about doing the same thing here. Perhaps Anchorage needs a visit from her?

I thought the mayor was supportive of the idea of making things safer, but as a non-cyclist probably has no idea what it’s really like out there. I felt as if the entire burden to change the situation was on citizens like me, which seems to be generally the case for so many things. There are only so many meetings I can attend on my own time and only so many projects I can take on for free, you know. I wonder why I even have to pay taxes if I have to do everything I care about by myself…

In general I think the attitude of drivers has a lot to do with it but for whatever reason the Muni is reluctant to even begin to try to change drivers’ attitudes towards anything – running red lights, aggressive driving, road rage, DUI – huge problems up here and there’s no effort whatsoever to curb them.

“You are giving every biker a bad name!” sputters the man.
“We ride bikes, too!” Injects his wife, who you’ll recall was about two inches away from my bike as her husband passed me moments earlier.

Argh! Two of my least favorite incoherent forms of abuse. Are we supposed to feel better? worse? I’ve tried “Well, you are giving every car driver a bad name” and “I drive a car, too” responses but I am not really sure what that is supposed to mean either.

He rides a bike too, so he’s the authority on who deserves to be run down on the road and who gets his seal of approval? He rides a bike so….what, exactly?

It’s so aggravating to try to communicate with people issuing such weak and self-righteous arguments. So I can take a sledgehammer to their car door and justify the damage by saying “I drive a car, too, and you weren’t doing it right.” Is that what they mean?